Description:
Distributed energy resources, such as small-scale power generators,
electricity storage units, and responsive loads, can play a crucial
role in combating climate change, increasing the amount
of electricity generated from renewable sources, and enhancing energy
saving.
In the near future, households will be equipped with small-scale power
generators, such as solar panels and wind turbines, and with energy
storage devices, such as batteries and heat storage units. Households with
such distributed energy resources can operate more independently of energy
suppliers, and they can buy and sell power both among one
another and to and from their supplier.
Fig. 1. A
small local energy network.
Also, households will be equipped with devices that can
monitor and switch on and off energy production and consumption. These devices will allow more efficient control of energy flows
within households. A high-tech startup company that is developing technology for
enabling this is Qurrent. Qurrent develops devices, software, and
services that enable the creation of small local energy
networks, such as shown in Fig. 1. The households in the network
exchange energy to maximize the efficiency of the energy they
produce.
Qurrent has developed the Qbox, the Qserver, and the Qmunity website. The
Qbox, as shown in Fig. 2, is a small box that is
included in each participating house or office building in the local
energy network. The data from the Qboxes of several
households can be collected at a central location. At this central
location, it can de determined how the Qboxes should control the energy
appliances of the households. The Qserver performs this control
task. It therefore includes a control algorithm that
determines how the Qboxes should manage energy
flows. The Qmunity website, as shown in Fig. 3, shows the user energy performance
information through easy to understand graphs.
Fig. 2. The Qbox.
Fig. 3. The Qmunity website.
Assignment:
In this MSc project you will focus on the control algorithm for the
Qboxes. You will work on developing a control strategy that can run on
the Qserver and that can coordinate the energy consumption and
production of the participants in the local energy network through the
Qboxes. We will start by making a description of the control problem
to be solved and a survey of appropriate control
techniques. Then we will select one of the techniques and use this technique to
design a controller for the Qserver. Finally, there is the
opportunity to implement the resulting controller on a real-life setup.
This MSc project will partly be done at TU Delft and
partly at Qurrent (located in Schiedam, 10 minutes by train from
Delft).
If you are interested in selecting this project as your MSc project,
please stop by at the office of Rudy Negenborn or Bart De Schutter, or send
an e-mail to r.r.negenborn@tudelft.nl for more information.
